Hwange Colliery to lose $1,6 million property

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EMBATTLED coal mining giant, Hwange Colliery, is set to lose property worth $1,6 million after its application for stay of execution in a labour case involving 33 workers was dismissed the Bulawayo High Court.
(File Photo): Hwange Colliery
(File Photo): Hwange Colliery

EMBATTLED coal mining giant, Hwange Colliery, is set to lose property worth $1,6 million after its application for stay of execution in a labour case involving 33 workers was dismissed the Bulawayo High Court.

BY ALOIS VINGA

The company had filed an urgent chamber application seeking a stay of execution pending appeal against an arbitral award passed in favour of the employees.

Bulawayo High Court judge Justice Martin Makonese also ordered Hwange Colliery to pay the legal costs. The 33 are part of over 200 workers who were retrenched in 2012 after the company negotiated retrenchment packages through the works council.

A copy of the agreement on the payment modalities produced by the former employees confirms that the company agreed to settle the packages by September 30, 2012.

However, the company failed to meet its bargain until last year, after which the workers through their lawyer Albert Chambati were granted a writ of execution by Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku and attached four tractors, a Nissan UD 70 lorry, an AVM bus, coal haulers and other vehicles.

After the attachment of the property, the company made an undertaking to settle the debt and filed an urgent chamber application for stay of execution arguing that there was lack of clarity in the interpretation of a provision guiding the retrenchment packages.

In the application, the company argued that paragraph six of the agreement stated that if the employer breached the agreement, the aggrieved parties were entitled, but not obliged and on notice to cancel the deed of settlement.

The company argued that the employees had not given the employer adequate notice.

But the workers’ lawyer dismissed the argument saying the company had agreed to settle the balance by January 31, failing which the employees would give the company 10 working days’ notice as remedy of the breach. Chambati added that the employees gave Hwange Colliery adequate time since end of January.